Raindrops
by Alisu-chan
Summary: Ami has trouble coping with her feelings for one of her friends - Shoujo ai Ami/Mako cuteness in the upcoming second chapter... Hehe..
1. Water In The Sky

A/N: Not my characters, sorry guys. Typical disclaimer. Shoujo Ai story, run away now if you're offended. Probably going to be 2 Chapters long, maybe more... Angsty at the moment, hope you can stomach it.... 

**Raindrops**

          _Part One: Water in the sky_

"Take the log, base 10 of 100…" Ami muttered over the math problem, the equations whizzing through her brain. She tapped her pencil against the hard, dark wood of Rei's table. Just keep looking down, look at the paper. She thought, willing herself to stay focused.  

          "Ami-chan?" Oh no. Not today, Makoto spoke up from across the room. She was sprawled on the floor, her English homework inside the curl of her long, elegant body. "Can you help me with translation?" she asked, peering at the blue haired genius with wide eyes. 

          "Sure, Makoto." Ami said, and though her personal opinion was that her voice wavered as the name crossed her lips, nothing seemed amiss. The other Senshi barely looked up, immersed in their work. 

          "Can you remember the word for run?" Makoto talked around the long yellow pencil gripped in her mouth, obscuring her words a bit. Ami wiped that dream from her head. It's a perfectly normal thing to dream about your friends, she thought. Dreams, after all, were only one's brain digesting thoughts and events of the day. Being around friends would prompt them to be in your dreams, naturally. 

          "It's hashiru." She smiled, and went back to scribbling on her homework. The other girls nodded a bit; they were used to intelligence flowing from Ami.  The log of 100 was 2. "Ah, minna-san? I have to get home early today…" Ami said, rising from her sitting position, and feeling a blush creep upon her. She was determined to escape view before she turned scarlet. 

          Slipping the last paper into a shoulder bag, and turning her back on the room, Ami prepared to go. The other girls, still battling the homework, mumbled protests, "Stay longer, Ami-chan..." But she stepped out the paper-doors, onto the porch anyway. 

          Outside, rain was cascading down from the eaves, forming a thick curtain from the rest of the world. The water had started falling since the study session began, Ami concluded. Will it never end? She slipped her feet into the small brown school loafers, and hopped out into the rain. She realized, as she walked away, that she could have waited and saved herself the walk in rain. Hard, springtime rains never lasted long. But that would have meant going back in, facing those green eyes, and seeing that dream played back in its every detail. 

          The rain was coming down cold on her head, slicking blue locks tightly down.  Shading her bag with an arm, Ami walked down the long steps, and then made a left turn at the road. All that kept repeating inside her eyes was the dream. Long brown hair, flowing loose in some unfelt breeze. Cream colored hands. That was the image that had followed Ami around all day. Our hands intertwined, hers sweeping down my neck. My hands running through her hair. 

          "Get home, kid!" someone yelled, their car screaming by in the darkness. Ami ignored them and kept walking, eyes downcast, mind spinning turbulently. No matter how she reasoned with herself, there was never a satisfactory explanation for why this had to happen. Why do I have to imagine kissing her every time I see her face? Ami knew she had never asked for this. The pavement was tracking by under her feet, and she thought bitterly that at least her feet knew where to go. Her heart didn't. It only seemed to know how to break.  

          The Temple walls were long past when she looked up. The rain beat hard, and Ami was drenched to the bone. What made everything change? Remembering fondly the time when she could talk to her Mako-chan, smile with her and laugh, and there was no pain. Times when touching her skin didn't leave an electric, sickened feeling in the pit of Ami's stomach. And now I have to go and spoil it, with stupid feelings I'm not even stupid supposed to have. 

          There was water trailing down her cheeks. Hot water, not the rain then. Tears, not that they were foreign.  She stopped walking, seeing a set of swings looming up out of the rainy fog. The storm wasn't even a bother any more.  Tired, Ami collapsed onto the wet, rubber seats of the children's play swings. Gripping the chains, she started to rock back and forth slowly. The rain was still pummeling down, and her book bag lay lonely forgotten on the woodchips. 

          A hot shaking filled her. Why did this have to happen? Wasn't she already coming to terms with being so different? Too smart, a genius girl no one would talk to. It had always been hard for her, even when she was little. No one liked the kid in class who got the best grades and broke the curve, even in Kindergarten. It had been simple then, Ami mused. Back before she started to have these strange yearnings in the pit of her stomach. Inklings that the girls who mooned over boys in her classes were somehow getting it wrong.  She found a name for it when she was thirteen. Lesbians, a boy in her class had said, referring to a pair of women walking by on the street. The word sounded strange at first, so alien. Is that me, little Ami had wondered. 

          Then, as if that wasn't enough, fate had to step in, and Sailor Mercury was revived. Ami was usually grateful that she'd been given another lifetime, but once in every long while, she was bitter; no one else had to study and save the world, apart from her small group. No one else had this many secrets piled on layer after layer. 

          "A...Ami?" came a question out of the rainy darkness. Ami lifted her head, surprised. There was Makoto, standing under an umbrella, her feet bare and muddy. "Are you okay?"


	2. Water From My Eyes

**Raindrops**

_Water from my eyes_

          "Uh... I..." Ami couldn't find words, not even enough lies to save herself the truth. That girl has such warm eyes, she thought. Ami swiped the back of her hand across her face, dragging her tears with it. 

          "Are you crying?" Makoto asked, looking inquisitively closer. Ami whipped her head away, eyes squeezed shut. Of course her emotions would betray her. And Mako-chan would find out, find out how the blue haired girl felt. And she'd hate someone who was that twisted. It would send Ami's world crumbling to pieces in the mud, to be hated by someone so important. And still those perfidious tears were welling up in her eyes, shouting her secrets for the world to know. 

          Though Ami wanted to keep her face turned away forever, she looked back in surprise when she felt a warm touch on her legs. The Soldier of Protection was kneeling on the ground, holding the other girl's knees. Green eyes looked up into wide blue, imploringly. 

          "You're upset, can't you tell me why?" Mako-chan asked, her umbrella lying forgotten on the ground beside her. Her hair was deflating, weighed down by the rain. Ami was silent. 

          "I want to help you be happy, Ami. I want you to be really, really happy." 

          Before she could think, Ami spat back a reply. "And how could you hope to do that?"

          Makoto didn't gasp at the sudden cruelty, but squeezed her face, as if the barb really had pierced her deep. "Do you hate me?" She asked. 

          "Do I, I what?" The blue tinted girl still slowly rocking her swing was puzzled. 

          "You barely talk to me anymore!" Her kneeling Mako-chan accused. "You won't even look me in the eyes, you're cold." Now both girls had tears in their eyes, staring at each other in confusion and pain. "Did I do something to make you mad? I don't want you to hate me, Ami." Mako laid her head upon the other girl's knees, gripping the bottom of her skirt with white knuckles. 

          "I… Mako, I..." Ami stuttered. 

          "I don't want you to hate me…" The brunette choked on tiny sobs as she repeated herself. "More than anyone else, I don't think I could bear it if you hated me. I'd die, I'd die if you hated me… because… because… I love you too much…" Makoto whispered into her friend's thigh. 

          Mercury didn't digest the words for a moment, as her fellow Senshi sobbed onto her legs without abandon. Her first thought was to pinch her skin; this was surely another deceitful dream, a mirage in the thunderstorm. But the girl who leaned on her felt so warm, so real. And such a real statement she'd just made. 

          Ami brushed Makoto's cheek with her hand, and the other girl looked up. Her eyes were puffy and red already, but Ami barely noticed. She took the simplest action, the oldest one, and placed a tiny kiss on her Makoto's lips. 

          They both knelt on the ground, each looking through the deluge at a soaked, red eyed, love stuck girl. "Mako-chan. I couldn't hate you; I couldn't even begin to hate you." Ami said, and they collapsed together, holding tightly to one another, as if to melt into one body. 

          "I love you." 

          They sat under the swings as the rain died down and the thunder scattered on the horizon. But the darkness only got thicker as fog rolled over the city. Finally, after what might well have been an eternity of staring at each other in dizzy joy, the two girls stood up. 

          "I'm a complete mess… My mother is going to kill me." Ami said, looking at her clothing covered in drying mud. "Well, she'll kill me if I can even find my way home again." Makoto laughed. 

          "And I left my shoes at Rei's. Great." She muttered. Awkward silence followed that remark, both of them wondering how you said goodbye for a little while. 

          "Well, I have to keep studying…" Ami mumbled, picking up her bags with a rose-bush sized blush across her face. She was turning to go when she found the taller girl in her way. 

          "Goodnight, love." Makoto said, bending down to place a kiss on Ami's forehead. Ami watched the other girl's silhouette receding into the blackness, until there was nothing left to watch. And even after Mako-chan had disappeared, Ami's insides bubbled, and sang themselves a warm, familiar tune. 

A/N: *Happy Happy* I got actual feedback! Wee. This was supposed to be a one shot. Then it was supposed to be a two-shot (if that's really a thing at all, o_O...), now It's going to have MORE parts. Oh dearie me. 


	3. Interlude: The Boots

_Interlude: The Boots_

          Back at the Hino Shrine, not one of the three girls was even pretending to study. It wasn't particularly because of Ami's disciplinary absence, Minako thought, but it was caused by Ami's absence. And Makoto's, for that matter. 

          "This's been almost twenty minutes, you know?" Minako voiced her concern and bewilderment. Usagi and Rei nodded like bobble-head dolls, in unison. No one particularly wanted to say anything. 

          A moment more passed with drawn out silence, though it was getting thin. Usagi popped up. "I have to go! I have a date!" She shouted her escape, and darted out the door without as much as a backward glance. 

          "Lucky." Minako grumbled. "I wish I had a date…" 

          "You and me both, sister." Rei said, tapping her fingers across the wooden table. The nails, painted a faint shade of red, made a clickety-clickety-clickety sound that matched the rain beat for beat. 

          "What, Rei-chan the perfect? Lonely?" Minako was almost amazed. Sure, Rei did have a knack for putting up a front of total perfection. If she hadn't been the representative of fire, she could have been called an Ice Queen. Although Ami should have reserved that position, Minako thought, the blue haired girl had never once been near that description. 

          Rei giggled in spite of herself. "Since when am I perfect?" She asked, pointedly not looking towards the boots in the corner. The boots that belonged to Mako-chan. What, exactly, the shrine maiden wondered, would make Makoto suddenly bolt up and race out the door, forgetting her shoes? 

          "Ah!" Minako sighed melodramatically, sinking into a fake faint on the cushions. "We are but two lonely maidens! We cannot be perfect! 'The course of true love is never quite as good as you think you can be!'" She hollered the quotation with gusto, like an actress expecting some great award.  

          "Err... Minako-chan? I think that's 'The course of true love never did run smooth'".  

          "Oh. Right then."

          The silence returned. Both girls tried to busy themselves with their work, but neither had any success. Then the door creaked open. 

          A very wet and very sheepish looking Makoto stood in the doorway. She was holding an umbrella, and her feet were indeed covered with mud. "I, uh, came to get my shoes. And return your umbrella, Rei… I just grabbed it, sorry." She snatched the shoes as though she was afraid she might be attacked on the spot, and darted back out the door, flinging the still open umbrella out on the porch as she escaped into the rainy night. 

          The two girls stared after her, and then moved their gazes to look unbelieving at each other. 

          "Is she going crazy?" Rei asked. "Or am I? That DID just happen, right…?" Minako nodded, disbelieving too. 

          "She's hiding something, obviously…" the blonde muttered. "Aha! I know it! As the Goddess of Love, I can always tell when these things happen! Mako-chan is in love!" The shout was accompanied by a smack of triumph on the table. 

          "In love? With who?"

          There was another moment of silence in what was becoming a largely silent evening. 

          "How am I supposed to know?" 

          The sound of Rei's head hitting the table in irritation punctuated the silence. 

A/N: To apologize, this chapter isn't really Ami/Makoto… or really, it doesn't have any Shoujo Ai, or does it? O_O Ok anyhow, there will be more random fluffly romance in the next chapter – Ami and Makoto go on a date. Sort of. 


	4. Now Dry

A/N: ^_^ Another chapter, enjoyable I hope! I tried to make it longer (and it is! It's longer than any other one I've done so far.) The story is still far from over, but I'm still far from knowing exactly what's going to happen…. Well, have fun reading with the fluffy love bits all thrown in!

_Now dry_

          The next morning dawned clear and crisp. And this wasn't just an assumption on Ami's part. She had been sitting at her windowsill when the sun came up, watching out over the city vista and thinking strange thoughts. 

          _ "More than anyone else, I don't think I could bear it if you hated me. I'd die, I'd die if you hated me… because… because… I love you too much…"_

          Had that happened? Had that really happened? Had the tall girl, who was so strong on the outside, really collapsed in front of the swing set and said that?  Makoto, who used to belong to a gang? 

          Not that that really bothered Ami. That was a strange thing indeed. To a girl who was terrified of rule breaking, what kind of sense did it make to suddenly be fascinated with such a tough person? But Makoto wasn't hard, she was kind. And this story, Ami noted, has been played out so many times. Good girl falls for bad boy. Only, this time, it was strange. Good girl falls for slightly bad girl? Not bad at all, really, Ami said. _Perfect girl, I've fallen for such a perfect girl. _

          In the middle of these exhaustive thoughts, Ami turned towards her bed. It lay untouched, and she realized that every inch of her body longed to curl up inside the sheets and be completely and utterly unconscious. 

          Makoto, wearing her tattered old pink bath robe, picked up the phone slowly. Her insides were quivering and quaking in a way that she would have called fear, if it had not been for such a silly subject. "You, Makoto, have called this girl thousands of times. You've called her, knowing the feelings you have for her and hating yourself for it, hundreds of times. Why should today be ANY different?" She upbraided herself. "Now. Dial." 

          Her fingers followed the order. Makoto, having once read a book on the topic, knew that everyone talked to themselves. Everyone constantly had a little inner monologue running, analyzing and commenting on everything. So, when she was alone, she had decided to be straightforward about it, and just talk out loud. 

          The phone was ringing. Makoto clutched the earpiece, and for all the fluttering inside her chest, she almost hung up again. After three or four chimes, a groggy but familiar voice answered. 

          "Mizuno (yawn) residence, may I ask who is uhnn calling?" Ami asked. Makoto almost screamed inside, "ANSWER HER!"

          "Its… Its Makoto…" she said shakily. "I, I'm really sorry, did I wake you up?"

          "Don't worry about that too much… I'll go right back to sleep…" 

          "Oh I'm sorry, I should hang up, we can talk later, go sleep!" No matter how much courage this took, Makoto thought, her rest is more important. 

          "No, no!" Ami said quickly, sounding awake for the first time. "We should talk, don't hang up!" Makoto's skin shook with the desperate warmth of those words for a moment. 

          "It's really okay, if you need to sleep…" An idea dawned on the brown haired girl, but it was the kind of idea that was terrifying to suggest. What if Ami said no? What if she laughed and slashed the vision of last night to pieces? 

          "Uh... Ami-chan?" There was a silence. "Ami-chan?"

          "Huh? Oh what? Huh?" came the muddled reply. "I was... I was resting my eyes..." Makoto giggled. "I wasn't sleeping!" Ami defended. 

          "Look, you need to get some sleep." A pause. Makoto took a deep breath and pulled whatever resolve she had out into the open. "Why don't we meet later when you're all rested?" And now it was completely beyond her hands. 

          "That…. That sounds good… How about we have lunch?" 

          "Uh, hate to burst your bubble, but it's already twelve thirty…" Ami sighed mournfully. "Dinner then? How about I just come by and get you, you'd sleep in and miss it otherwise?" the girl on the other end made a faint uh huh. The line clicked off. Makoto had to laugh in spite of herself, it wasn't often that you asked someone out and they answered by falling asleep. 

          The sun's rays were dancing on the city streets ferociously as the day came to an end. As Makoto trudged down the streets, in that pair of boots that had caused her so much embarrassment last night, she had to squint in order to see anything, whenever her route took her west. The other remnants from last night's vengeful storm, the puddles, were the reason Makoto had been able to bear wearing those again. She kept seeing her two friend's faces pop up from the table and stare at her in wonder, and then calling after her as she dashed away into the storm. 

          "How am I going to explain that to them?" She muttered. "What am I, what are we going to tell them?" She questioned herself, jumping back as a bus sped by and splattered rain water all over the sidewalk in front of her. "We? Is there even such a thing as 'we'?" She asked, hoping fervently that there was. 

          And then in the middle of her wondering, there was Ami's apartment building. It could never fail to impress Makoto, this twenty story, shining wonder. Ami lived there. No wonder she was so smart, so sophisticated. She lived in a palace, practically. Makoto's steps clicked on the marble entranceway; there was the scratch Minako had made across the floor so long ago. She giggled at the memory, once again seeing the Soldier of Love and Beauty reduced to tears, running to marble was so soft that it scratched easily. Makoto laughed now, as she entered the elevator. Ami managed to be a genius, even then. That was one of the things that Makoto had first been drawn to. She'd wanted to be near the brainy girl, just to soak up all the wisdom that seemed to come pouring out of Ami's mouth like a fountain. As time passed, and she got to know the girl behind the brain, Makoto had simply wanted to sit there and bask in everything that made Ami; her kindness, her steady emotions, the fact that no matter how rich her mother, she still acted just like a normal girl.  

          The elevator went 'ding', snapping the brown haired girl out of her thoughts. It was the eleventh floor, Ami's floor. She walked unsteadily along the carpets, trying not to drip her messy boots onto them. There was soft lighting, wall sconces and gorgeously crafted lamps on tables. Nothing like Makoto was used to; her apartment building was the bare minimum, the hallways were just decks facing the parking lot, her lighting was the sun and fluorescent overhead lamps that attracted moths. 

          She rapped lightly on the door, and after a moment Ami's mother opened it. "Kino-san! Good to see you again!" said the older woman. She looked so much like her daughter, although her hair was darker. They kept it styled in the same way, short and practical. "I think Ami's in her room, you can go on in." said Mizuno-san. "I have to finish up a speech, I'm speaking to the board of directors tomorrow about immunization expenses." She motioned Makoto towards the far door, and then took off down the hall in the purposeful way that she seemed to have passed on to her daughter. 

          Makoto knocked again, this time on Ami's door, and even more gently. "Ami?" she called, knocking again. There was no reply. The door was hanging slightly ajar, so Makoto pushed it inwards, feeling slightly guilty. She searched around the low-lit room; none of the lights were on, only a streak of yellow sliding in under the drawn curtains. And there was Ami. She was leaned on the desk next to her phone, sound asleep. Mako crept up on her, looking down. It was too gorgeous to not watch, even for a moment. Ami was asleep, her head on her crossed arms, and strands of her bright blue hair were spilling onto her face. Her skin looked flawless, white like the moon, soft like a breeze. Makoto sat down on the edge of Ami's bed and stared, lost in worship. 

          A yawn came from the sleeping girl after a few moments, and one eye lazily opened. It caught on to Makoto, and the poor Mercury almost jumped out of her skin. "Mako-chan! Oh my gosh! I'm sorry! Have you been waiting?" Ami asked, and then rubbed her face briskly. "I was going to wake up and have some lunch later… but… I suppose its dinner time by now?"

          Makoto nodded, and her companion sighed. "Ah well. Let me take a shower, then we can get food…?" she asked, tentatively. Makoto nodded. 

          "Should I go somewhere else? Leave you to change in peace?" the taller girl asked, standing to go. 

          "No, no, you stay here, I can get ready in a second or two." Ami zipped into the bathroom, and soon the sound of hot water running filled the house. Makoto looked around Ami's room. There, on the walls, were academic certificates, trophies of the higher mind. There were paintings that her father had sent her. And there were photographs, of Usagi stuffing food into her face, of Minako posing like a super star. There was Rei glaring at the camera, and Luna or Artemis looking innocent and feline. Chibi Usa and Hotaru were holding hands and laughing, or Chibi Usa was yanking on Usagi's hair. There was their family, scattered all over the walls. And there was a picture of her, Makoto saw. Not just the group photos, not hanging on the wall, but a lonely, tattered photograph of herself, almost asleep at one of their late study sessions. She walked towards it, curious as to what Ami saw in this picture, other than a bored girl who was about to get a D in History if she didn't pick up her studying. The door behind her opened again, and Makoto realized that the shower had stopped a few minutes ago. 

          She turned to see Ami, her hair still a little wet, dressed in a long jean skirt and looking quite awake. "Shall… Shall we go?" Ami asked, a little fright showing in her voice. Makoto walked over to the door with her. 

          "Let's." Her heart was beating a mile a minute. She took the doorknob in her hands and headed out into the living room. Ami followed. 

          "Mom! I'm going out; I'll be back by eleven thirty!" Ami shouted into the kitchen. A faint "Mmmhmm!" told them that her mother was indeed listening, but barely. They opened the front door, and then Ami closed it behind her.

          "So, where do you want to eat?" Makoto asked, looking up and down the hall. Anywhere but looking into Ami's eyes, which made her feel so liquid inside she could hardly walk. 

          "Hm…" Ami said. "How about the Italian place down the block?" She slipped her hand into Makoto's. "They have really good pizza." Makoto blushed, and they started walking down the hallway together. 

          "You like pizza?"

          Ami laughed. 


End file.
